Frank Abagnale: From Fraud To FBI

most wanted criminal

Before long, he had defrauded people in all 50 states and 26 foreign countries. Warrants were issued for his arrest all over the world. After five years of these hijinks, the law finally caught up with Frank Abagnale. At the age of 21, an Air France flight attendant recognized him from a wanted poster and the French authorities arrested him.

He served a total of five years in prison in France, Sweden and finally the United States, where he was sentenced to 12 years. In 1974, the federal government approached him and offered him a deal; they released him on the condition that he would help the authorities, without remuneration, to understand the inner workings of fraud and confidence games.

From that moment, he established a company, Abagnale & Associates, which advises financial institutions and law enforcement agencies on how to prevent the same crimes he so brilliantly committed. He is now an international expert on forgery, embezzlement and other forms of white-collar crime. From this new source of income, he willingly paid back everyone he ripped off.

Abagnale admits that life on the run was lonely, and not as glamorous as it is sometimes portrayed in Hollywood. Now a family man, he confesses that he still gets ideas about interesting scams but doesn't act on them. He is certain the crime of the future will be identity theft and that today's technology makes it a lot easier. His new mission in life is to convince the world of it.

With the eyes of the world turning to him thanks to the release of the film adapation of Abagnale's biopic, amateur sleuths will likely find themselves questioning the veracity of the events depicted in the film. Even the most extraordinary lives have dull moments and filmmakers find themselves obligated to alter facts in an effort to dramatize key moments. You can therefore count on the name being searched massively as the movie gains popularity.

For younger generations, the name Frank Abagnale is closely associated with the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the new Steven Spielberg film, Catch Me If You Can in which Tom Hanks also stars. However, the book by the same name — on which it's based — penned by Abagnale and Stan Redding, was released in 1980 and was a huge bestseller within weeks. It was recently re-released in light of the upcoming film.

Since then, the man has been a frequent guest on The Tonight Show and co-hosted a TV show in 1989 called Crimewatch Tonight . A regular speaker on the conference circle, he has been chosen as one of the top five lecturers in America by the International Platform Association and was voted the #1 Campus Speaker in America by the National Entertainment College Conference Association. Also, he wrote a second book relating to fraud prevention, The Art of the Steal , which was published in the fall of 2001.

The man known as the "world's greatest con artist," Abagnale's popularity will surely continue to "steal" the spotlight for years to come.

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